First of all, I'm not sure if SO is the right place to ask. Please migrate me if needed.
I would like to host a WCF-based service so it is available for everyone. While hosting it on my personal, local servers succeeded, I would prefer to move it to an external service provider for various reasons.
I'll be blunt: I have no clue about hosting providers. I know there are webhosters, virtual and root servers and several other services. What I would like to know is what kind of hosting I need in my case. I understand that a root server would easily fulfill my requirements, but that is not exactly cheap.
The program I'd like to run on the server requires .NET 4, preferably on a windows machine. Access to a folder in the file system is much appreciated (1 GB storage is enough by far). Communication with clients (in form of an applications written in .NET) via opening a port on the server. Traffic is low (<<1 GB/month?) There is no website. Having the provider perform updates would be nice.
My understanding is that a virtual server would be a possible solution. Prices seem start at around 5€/month, which is ok for me. However, I read that for these cheap solutions RAM is severely limited (~400 MB), and I'm not confident that is enough to run windows and a .NET application.
